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Review: The villains of no-man's-land

2 November 1991

By DAVID CONCAR

Viruses by Arnold J. Levine, Freeman, pp 240, £16.95

In the latest addition to the Scientific American Library, Arnold Levine
takes us on a journey through biology’s biggest no-man’s-land: the space
between the living and the nonliving that is occupied by viruses. All the
great villains are there: smallpox, polio virus, influenza A, herpes viruses
and, of course, HIV. And Levine steers an impressive course through the
great epidemics and research breakthroughs of the past hundred years, reminding
us that human history and viral disease are inextricably linked.

He notes the triumphs: the eradication of smallpox, the victory against
polio virus won with the Salk vaccine (between the 1940s and 1980s the number
of cases reported annually in the US plummeted from 10 000 per 100 000 people
to 0.001), and the development in the 1970s of acyclovir for treating herpes
virus infections.

Among the ironies he includes is the fact that improved sanitation in
the West changed poliomyelitis from a rare disease to one feared by thousands,
as children grew up without ever being exposed to the virus and thus did
not develop immunity.

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And there are some sobering realities. For example, despite decades
of research on viruses and the intense quest in recent years for drugs to
combat AIDS, virologists have so far discovered only a handful of drugs
for fighting viral infection.

Along the way Levine tackles some fundamental questions. How did viruses
evolve? What makes them tick at a molecular level? How are they transmitted
from host to host? Why are some of them (notably HIV and influenza A) so
good at evading human immune responses?

Even with its emphasis on molecular biology, this is no turgid academic
tome. Levine’s explanations of the genetic and molecular structures of viruses
are palatable and set in the broader context of how they contribute to pathogenesis.